Insight-Based Selling at Ingersoll Rand
A division of Ingersoll Rand was making the shift from selling products to selling services and solutions through insight-based conversations with prospects and customers.
A division of Ingersoll Rand was making the shift from selling products to selling services and solutions through insight-based conversations with prospects and customers. The purpose of the project was to achieve business transformation. Specifically, transforming the company from skillsets in the field that focused on product selling to instead leveraging skillsets that focused on services and solutions insight selling. The project allowed us to bring various disparate offering groups and leaders together on our team into one common approach to get consistent about our messaging.
One aspect of the solution we found impactful is the whiteboard approach; we've had an incredible experience with whiteboarding. It is a powerful internal training tool where an account manager can quickly learn a new message paired with something visual. Essentially a day and a half later, they're able to replay that message pretty much verbatim after the two-day workshop. vPlaybook has also been a valuable tool for us as a leadership team. Based on field feedback, we can quickly add new pieces of content, upload them to the vPlaybook, and they're in front of the field as needed. We're able to react to their experiences and needs in real-time.
The behavioral change needed was to move away from pain-funnel and traditional solution selling. We shifted to insight selling which included leading with ideas, focusing on provocation, and implementing value-based selling. The account managers would previously show up with a blank sheet of paper in hand and ask numerous questions (which we all know has been overused and annoys most customers). Instead, we're now leading with a value-added perspective about their business and using that to ask the right questions to facilitate better, more productive discovery.
Coming out of the two-day workshop with 50 people in attendance where roughly 35 people were account managers, we saw 10 million dollars worth of wins in six months from the culmination of 13 opportunities. Two of those deals were three million dollars apiece. The other 11 deals were roughly $340,000 on average. The pipeline was around $20 million and trending upwards with the activity mentioned. The average pipeline amount for the individuals who had attended was about $540,000. Our financial performance saw impressive, new, and organic business development, which the company continually strives to achieve.
DSG has been a great project leader. We found value in having a partner that can run the project and keep progress on track with all that goes on in our daily work environment. In addition to leading the project, DSG has also demonstrated that they understand the customer. We conducted voice-of-the-customer interviews, and DSG facilitated those discussions in a customer-centric way. They recognize the end game, which is a critical aspect when working with a consultant on something as important as the types of discussions the company advocates having with customers.
